Cheat Sheet About Development Issues in India
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Page 1 Cheat sheet about development issues in India Aaditeshwar Seth Gram Vaani Dec 2017 Gram Vaani’s target community is the rural and urban poor, especially in the north Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi NCR, and Haryana. Governance institutions have largely failed these people, and they remain oppressed with poor socio-economic mobility despite rapid economic growth happening in the country1. The administration of public welfare schemes and the delivery of health and education services in these states remains poor2, with widespread malnutrition, poor quality of education, and a badly functioning public health system. Local industries have not grown rapidly3, and while heavy industries such as mining which do employ locals have kept pace with India’s development, suppressed wages and widespread casualization of labour has resulted in considerable exploitation and resentment among the rural populations4. Agriculture is no longer able to absorb surplus employment5, and poor price realizations by farmers with the goal of keeping food inflation for the retail consumers low, has further eroded livelihoods through farming6. As a result, widespread migration happens to industrial centers such as Delhi NCR, but where workers are heavily exploited with poor wages due to a mass casualization of the workforce7. Even the living conditions of these workers is extremely bad, with poor sanitation in the colonies and exploitation by local landlords 8. Due to a systematic weakening of the trade unions and constraints which prevent the unionization of casual workers, adequate checks cannot be imposed on the employers and contractors either, to provide social security benefits to the workers in a reliable manner9. Wages and working conditions in the non-agricultural informal sector which employs the bulk of the Indian workforce, and includes industries like construction, brick kilns, small garment units, domestic help, home based work in garments and beedi making, etc, are even weaker because of deficient regulations and which are also harder to impose in the informal setting10. All these people have common needs, starting with better functioning of public services, to being able to get a fair wage without exploitation, get their due rights and entitlements, get policies working for them instead of against them, and lead a life of dignity for themselves and their families. Unfortunately however, despite free elections at all levels – national/state/local – fulfilling these needs remains hard because of a complex mix of factors all of which stack up against the poor. Not being enough literate and aware, or empowered, they are often unable to directly approach government officials to resolve their grievances, be it related to NREGA wage delays or ration card problems in the villages11, or PF/ESI and minimum wage problems in the cities12. Agendas like improving the public health and education facilities are often sidelined in elections in favour of caste centric sops13, and local institutions are unable to hold officials accountable to ensure a good quality of service of facilities and schemes14. Furthermore, migrants from rural areas who settle in the cities for low paying jobs, lack a sense of community and solidarity to be able to stand up against poor working conditions and living conditions15, and neither are the weakening trade unions able to represent the workers to impose adequate checks and balances on the dominant neo- liberal approach in the modern Indian democracy16,17. As a result, despite a clear understanding of the community needs, the solutions remain elusive. Page 2 References and notes 1 Anirudh Krishna, The Broken Ladder, 2017. Page 104 – adverse health events remain to be the largest factor because of which families fall into poverty. 60%-85% of households who fell into poverty in different states had one or more health episodes as important events in their history. Idleness, alcoholism, and drug addition, among family members in the household were not more than 5-7% of the reasons. Being able to provide a safety net to prevent families from falling back into poverty is just as important, as providing education, employment, and entrepreneurship opportunities to rise out of poverty. Over a 12 year period during the 1970s, studies showed that anywhere between 10-25% families escaped poverty but another 6-22% families fell back into poverty, resulting in an almost negligible net change. 2 Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen, An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions, 2013. Despite rapid economic growth, India has not been able to reduce poverty drastically and its development indicators remain among the lowest. 43% of children under 5 are underweight (rank 15 out of the 16 poorest countries of the world), 48% are stunted (rank 13 out of 16 poorest countries), the mean years of schooling is 4.4 (rank 11/16), infant mortality is 47 and under-5 mortality is 61 (rank 10/16). Much of this is also concentrated in the states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, and Rajasthan, followed by states like Assam, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Gujarat. Many reasons contribute towards this. India only spends 1.3% of its GDP on health, as compared to a global average of more than 4% of GDP. The administration and delivery of facilities and services is problematic because of broken accountability loops and a largely uneducated population base. Social norms against gender equality and caste/class based equality make it harder for especially marginalized groups to gain access to services and schemes. Problematic design of many government schemes in an effort to achieve higher targeting of beneficiaries have instead led to the exclusion of deserving beneficiaries. 3 Anirudh Krishna, The Broken Ladder, 2017. Page 87 – the need for decentralized networks of production and innovation, instead of centralized industrialization in a few urban centres only. Spatial inequality of industry location is in fact argued by many researchers as being the cause of spatial income inequality itself. History, national resources, human capital, local political economy, and culture, are all known to be contributory factors and areas which have favourable factors lined up are able to attract new industries more easily. Dipak Mazumdar, Employment and Inequality Outcomes in India, 2010. India is also known to have an interesting “missing middle” problem in the distribution of the size of its manufacturing units – the bulk of the employment is provided in units with 500+ workers or in units with less than 10 workers. There are very few units with more than 10 workers to less than 500 workers, and is the industry’s response to labour laws which mandate several provisions in units with more than 10 workers. Employers have preferred to expand horizontally by setting up more and more small units, than integrate into single large units. This also has an effect on inequality because it reduces the workers’ motivation for skills formation – large units tend to employ highly skilled workers who can use automated machines, and are hence out of the league for ordinary workers; whereas the small units employ unskilled workers, and there is little to be gained from building further skills. http://www.oecd.org/employment/emp/45282802.pdf 4 Sanhati, Overview of Coal Mining in India: Investigative Report from Dhanbad Coal Fields, 2011. The number of permanent workers at CIL (Coal India Limited) has steady dropped from 700,000 in 1981 to less than 350,000 now. No casual worker has been made permanent since 1990, only the kin of permanent workers who died or suffered significant injuries at work have been given jobs. A casual worker is now paid less than 10% the wages of a permanent worker, for the same kind work. http://sanhati.com/excerpted/3798/ 5 NCEUS, Report on Conditions of Work and Promotion of Livelihoods in the Unorganized Sector, 2007. Page 126 – based on NSSO 2006, unemployment of rural agricultural workers has risen from 9% in the 1990s to more than 16% in 2006. http://nceuis.nic.in/condition_of_workers_sep_2007.pdf 6 Kirankumar Vissa, How Long Can India’s Farmers Subsidise the Nation, 2017. Despite MSPs and various forms of electricity and fertilizer subsidies, farmers barely get a margin of 2-4% on their crop production. This has made their life incredibly difficult. Agricultural income is seasonal which makes it hard for farmers to maintain cash flows. Furthermore, the nature of agricultural production requires upfront investment for cropping and sees incomes only in bulk at the time of harvesting. This invariably requires farmers to raise debt, and any vagaries in the weather can significantly impact their ability to repay the debt and meet expenses. https://thewire.in/198485/farmers-protests-kisan-ki-loot-msp-fair-price/ Page 3 7 Financial Times, Is Contract Labour the Problem or the Solution, 2012. A high level debate on need for casualization to meet seasonal changes in the employment need of manufacturing industries, versus exploitation by manufacturers. More than 55% of the workforce in the organized sector is on contract. Furthermore, the organized sector itself only employs 7% of the workforce in India. http://cii.in/WebCMS/Upload/FE,%20CB-%2027%20july%202012.pdf 8 Gurgaon Workers News, Proletarian Photo Story on Kapas Hera: A Working Class Dormitory Shanty-Town in Gurgaon, 2010. Over 3,00,000 workers and families reside at Kapas Hera, out of which hardly 20,000 vote locally on civic matters. The original residents of Kapas Hera, ex-peasant families who own the land, now live in family houses and extract rental income from the workers. The workers who are mostly migrants from Bihar, are not permitted to procure food and grains from the designated PDS shops, and can only buy from the local merchants who are family members of the same peasant landlords, and control the living conditions of the local workers.